BOSTON THEATER MARATHON | Now in its 11th year, the BTM proves it can go the distance by stretching out to two days, with the idea of eventually expanding to "multiple venues, hundreds of performers, and thousands of cultural tourists and Boston theater patrons — not unlike Edinburgh's famed festival." Wow! For now, however, Day One is a "warm-up lap," with three staged readings of new plays — one of them Theresa Rebeck's The Novelist, with Huntington Theatre artistic director Peter Dubois directing. Day Two will bring the usual extravaganza of 50 10-minute plays; if the one you're watching doesn't grab you, you don't have long to wait for another. | Boston Center for the Arts, Virginia Wimberly Theatre at the Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | May 16-17 | Curtain May 16: 11 am + 3 pm + 7 pm [limited to 100 seats]; May 17: noon–10 pm | $25 advance/$30 doors; "warm-up lap" free

DORA THE EXPLORER LIVE! SEARCH FOR THE CITY OF LOST TOYS | Nickelodeon and Broadway Across America team up to present this touring show based on the popular pre-schooler TV series about a pint-sized Latina explorer. Former Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater co-artistic director Gip Hoppe is at the helm of the musical adventure whose heroine "is to kids what the Rolling Stones are to parents — she's one of the biggest stars in the world." | Opera House, 539 Washington St, Boston | 800.982.2787 | May 7-10 | Curtain 10:30 am + 2 pm Thurs | 10:30 am + 7 pm Fri | 11 am + 2 pm + 5 pm Sat-Sun | $21-$43.50

ELLIOT NORTON AWARDS | Paparazzi alert: Al Pacino will be attending the 27th annual Elliot Norton Awards, to accept a special award that's being given to his friend the late Paul Benedict, with whom he acted in David Wheeler's Theatre of Boston Company back in the 1960s. Rick Lombardo, who's headed to San Jose (see "New Rep 25th-Anniversary Gala," below), will accept this year's Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence. If you want to know whom the selection committee — Terry Byrne, Carolyn Clay, Iris Fanger, Louise Kennedy, Joyce Kulhawik, Sandy MacDonald, Robert Nesti, Ed Siegel, and Caldwell Titcomb — have chosen to receive the remaining awards, you'll have to show up. Further incentives: a musical performance by the touring company of Spring Awakening, a dessert reception after the ceremony, and free parking in the near-by Broadway Garage. | Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St, Cambridge | 617.496.2222 | May 11 | Curtain 7 pm | $15

LIGHT WAVES: BOSTON BALLET'S ''ALL KYLIÁN'' | March 13, 2013 A dead tree hanging upside down overhead, with a spotlight slowly circling it. A piano on stilts on one side of the stage, an ice sculpture's worth of bubble wrap on the other.

HANDEL AND HAYDN'S PURCELL | February 04, 2013 Set, rather confusingly, in Mexico and Peru, the 1695 semi-opera The Indian Queen is as contorted in its plot as any real opera.

REVIEW: MAHLER ON THE COUCH | November 27, 2012 Mahler on the Couch , from the father-and-son directing team of Percy and Felix Adlon, offers some creative speculation, with flashbacks detailing the crisis points of the marriage and snatches from the anguished first movement of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony.